


Mine?

by RishiDiams



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RishiDiams/pseuds/RishiDiams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For one brief shining moment, they had the clarity of 20/20 foresight and the means to do something about it, so together they made a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first spark of it rouses him from a healing coma he'd allowed to continue for far too long. But his reactions are still sluggish and his head feels like a piece crammed into the wrong part of the puzzle, so he slips back under never acknowledging the soft bed beneath him or the sounds of monitoring machines going haywire.

However, the buzzing, centered in a part of his brain long silent, never really goes away, and eventually he decides the effort of ignoring it is not worth the trouble.

The room is dark when he opens his eyes, the only light spilling in from the bank of windows facing the nurse's station. He's lying in a bed in a hospital ward, but all of the other beds are empty. His is the closest to the door and the nurse's station, farthest from the wall of windows with a view of the sky. By the faint glow emanating from that side of the room, he assumes it is either early morning or very late evening.

The steady *click*click*click* of a woman's heels approaching grabs his attention, and he turns towards the noise in time to see her stop at the door. She's human, if his senses are working correctly, dark-skinned and petite, her hair pulled back in a bun that stops just shy of being severe, and she's wearing a doctor's coat.

"Well, hello," she says, pitching her voice at a level that is blessedly not grating on his ears. "Was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get to see those eyes open."

He says nothing, only watches her. She doesn't fiddle nervously under the scrutiny like most people would, only stares back at him.

"Do you mind if I come in?"

He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out so he just nods instead.

She approaches the bed. "You've been in a coma, so don't expect everything to come back to you right away. Let's start with some simple yes and no questions, all right? I'm Dr. Jones; do you know who you are?"

He nods.

"Do you know where you are?"

He opens his mouth, realizes his voice still isn't cooperating and settles for shaking his head no. He's in hospital, and based on her accent he assumes he's in some variant of England, but whether it's the original, a nostalgia planet replication, or one of the space colonies, he can't say. Shouldn't say, either, because each of those answers if given at the wrong time could cause him unnecessary trouble.

"I'm going to touch your arm, is that all right?"

_Yes_.

She starts at his wrist, touching the bones and kneading the muscles gently as she works her way up to his elbow.

"Any pain?"

_No._

"Good. And higher." She continues the motions past his elbow and up to his shoulder, pushing the sleeve of the hospital gown up as she goes. "Anything?"

_No._

"Can I do the same with your leg?"

_Yes._

After a few more minutes of the strangest massage he's ever received, the doctor lowers the hem of the gown and recovers his legs again with the blanket.

"There's some controls on the side of the bed here, I'm going to move you into a sitting position very slowly, stop me if you experience any discomfort."

He nods and when she pushes the button a machine whirs to life and the bed begins to shift. In moments he's sitting up, hands uselessly resting in his lap.

"There's some water here, do you think you can drink?"

He nods yes and she picks up a pitcher on the nightstand and splashes some into a cup. He raises one eyebrow when she brings the cup to his lips, questioning the bare ounce of liquid at the bottom.

"Drink that with no problem and I'll give you more."

Gaze still trained on the doctor, he lifts his hand to take the cup from her and knocks back the water with ease.

"More," he rasps, handing the cup back to her.

Her eyes wide, she pours another ounce.

"More," he says again, and then a third time, until the cup is slightly more than half full with water. He takes it from her again and swallows it all in two gulps.

"More."

"Not right now. Let's let that hit your stomach and see what happens first. In the meantime, how do you feel about answering some more questions?"

"I'd prefer you answering mine."

Her lips quirk. "Fair enough. Trade?"

"Me first. Where am I?"

"Torchwood Hospital." He makes a 'go on' motion with his hand and she continues. "London, England, Earth. May 14, 2008."

He expects some measure of snark to accompany the oddly specific answer, but there is none and for the first time he wonders exactly what kind of hospital this is.

"What's your name?"

"John Smith."

She laughs. "Well, I suppose that's better than John Doe. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Smith." He takes her hand briefly when she offers it.

"How did I get here?"

"I'm not clear on the details, you predate me, actually. I know that you were found barely coherent and you slipped into the coma soon after. Then, when your unique physiology was discovered you were brought to our attention."

"And what is your interest in my 'unique physiology'?"

"Huh uh," she smiles, "my turn. Do you have anyone... local we can contact for you? Family? Friends?"

_No._ There's no way he's divulging any names until he gets some more answers.

Her hand lands lightly on his arm. "I'm sorry," she tells him sincerely. "And as far as your physiology is concerned, it's utterly fascinating and I'm sure the doctors here would love to discuss it with you, but that's all. Torchwood's not what it used to be. I wouldn't be here if it was."

"And what is Torchwood?"

"We're the experts in the strange and unusual, the unique." She smiles, but it's not nearly as reassuring as she intends it to be. "Now, since you're awake, Dr. Harper - he's my boss, and he'll be here in a few hours to meet you - will probably want to move you to a private room."

"And what if I want to leave?"

"Obviously, I can't recommend it. You've been unconscious for over a year --"

"And if I try to leave?" he tries again.

She points over her shoulder, unaffected by the touch of menace in his voice. "If you can get up and walk out of those doors I won't stop you."

He looks behind her to the door she'd walked in. He could, if he wanted to, get up and walk out with barely a stutter to his step. His time senses were the last thing to come fully online, though he still feels like his mind is stuffed with cotton balls, however, physically he's in nearly the same condition he was when he went into the healing coma.

"Clothes."

With an air of challenge, she walks over to a small wardrobe and opens the door to show him his jumper and leather jacket hanging side-by-side. A drawer at the bottom contains his denims.

He throws back the blanket and turns his body so that his legs hang over the edge of the bed. The doctor jumps toward him and makes a grab for his arm, but he pulls away from her and hops down. She's still poised to catch him when he straightens his shoulders and walks towards the wardrobe.

A choked noise from behind him registers at the same moment as the coolness on his backside.

"I'll just give you a moment."

Smirking to himself, he watches her flee the room before gathering up his clothes and depositing them on the bed. He pulls the curtain around the bed and dresses himself in no particular hurry while watching the sun as it slowly rises.

She joins him at the window several minutes later. "It is a lovely view."

London sprawls around them, the people like ants from this height as they scurry to work.

"I've called Dr. Harper. He's coming in early; he really wants to meet you."

He grunts noncommittally.

"If you leave, where will you go?"

"Around. I've always been sort of a wanderer."

"We can help you, you know, if you need a place to stay or transportation off-world."

She laughs when he looks down at her sharply. "What did you say?"

"You heard me. That is assuming you don't have a ship of your own."

"Earth isn't supposed to be aware --"

A proud grin. "I said we were the experts."

He returns his gaze to the window. "I have a ship."

"Good."

"I'm staying. At least for a while," he qualifies.

She beams. "I'm going to hold off on the paperwork for putting you in a private room. It's obvious you don't need to be under observation and if we can get Dr. Harper's approval, it will be just as easy to put you up in a flat of your own."

"A private room is fine. For now." It's not like he's going to be sleeping there much anyway.

"If you're sure?"

He nods.

"All right. Well, Mr. Smith, I've got rounds to do, but I'll be back with Dr. Harper in about an hour, okay?"

"It's Doctor."

"What?"

"My name."

"Oh. Dr. Smith."

He doesn't bother to correct her and she leaves the room.

The back of his head is still buzzing, but it's less sporadic, more refined. It's still not by any means communication, but there is intelligence there. Honestly, he's more bothered by the zeppelins in the sky.

First he needs to locate the TARDIS, and then he needs to figure out what happened to Rose.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't like Harper. He's annoying, slimy, and has a superiority complex. But in the last three weeks the other man has given him not one single reason to walk away from Torchwood Hospital. All of the doctors, Harper included, and the nurses treat him more like an honored guest than a patient, a visiting consultant rather than a detainee.

It was even jokingly suggested that the Director (whoever that is) should put him on the payroll after he'd stopped a trauma team from pulling a Lorilling's spikes out of their patient and causing irreparable damage. After the correct treatment was administered, the man walked away with a limp, but at least he could walk.

The success had earned him the title 'Doctor' in the eyes of everyone, even if he still hasn't yet made it clear to them that it's his name.

But despite that, he can tell that Martha Jones worries about him. She's seen him make no efforts to find his ship - the TARDIS is fine, happily resting above the rift in Cardiff soaking up energy - or make friends - lingering fears that all is not as it seems at Torchwood have prevented him from making any efforts to find Rose.

The zeppelins still confuse him, as does much of what he's learned about his surroundings. A President instead of a Prime Minister, zeppelins instead of airplanes and helicopters, and some drink called ViteX that appears to have stolen the market away from sodas. There are other differences, some more glaring, some subtle. All signs point to a parallel world, but he knows that travel between dimensions became impossible at the same time the hum of his people left his mind.

It's possible the answer lies with the incessant buzzing, but he's no closer to solving that mystery either.

Or so he thinks - at least until he is, through no actions of his own, quite literally _closer_ to the source.

It arrives one afternoon. He feels it enter the building, some six storeys below him, a distance which closes rapidly and he makes his way to the lift to meet it. But when the doors finally slide open, the car is empty, and the untrained telepathic mind - for that is what he now knows it is - is still below him.

He uses the buzzing like sonar to triangulate its location, arriving at a closed door that cannot - will not - keep him out.

A feminine shriek followed by his name, cried in anguish by a familiar voice, and the next thing he knows, he's holding an unconscious, half-naked Rose Tyler in his arms.

He fights off the small army of nurses and orderlies who surround him almost immediately and try to take her from him. He actually _growls_ at Martha Jones when she arrives moments later and attempts to placate him.

"John, you have to put her down."

Though he doesn't mean to do it, his hand slips down Rose's side and around to her bare stomach where he has only seconds to process the slightly distended hardened wall of her abdomen before the child below his fingers makes contact.

He gasps. Dimly, he hears Martha once again ordering him to put Rose down, threatening to call security if he doesn't.

He goes weak at the knees. The order is given and half a dozen nurses rush him, pulling Rose from his arms.

He is forced to the ground by a hand on his shoulder and he loses sight of Rose as the nurse carrying her rounds the corner, but he is unable to summon the strength to go after her.

She's pregnant. And, impossibly, it's _his_.

He loses track of how much time passes as his son chatters happily in the back of his mind, a mixture of half-formed thoughts and raw emotions. People shuffle nervously around him until security arrives, and some mention is made of calling the Director.

When the man arrives, the Doctor is raised to his knees. And then he laughs.

"What's wrong with him?"

"No one knows, sir. They heard Rose scream for a doctor and found him holding her, unconscious."

"Where is she?"

"After they got her away from him, Dr. Jones went to examine her."

Pete Tyler squats down to meet his eyes. "I swear, if you've hurt her in any way..." He leaves the threat unspoken.

The Doctor opens his mouth to offer the other man a piece of his mind but stops when he feels Rose approaching. A satisfied smirk works its way across his face and he has just long enough for it to further enrage Pete before a cry of "Doctor!" precedes Rose rounding the corner.

Pete's brow furrows in confusion.

Her bare feet slap against the floor as she runs toward him, effortlessly pushing aside a security guard who tries to stop her. Then she slows to a stop a few feet away and it's only when a sob escapes her that he turns away from Pete to look at her.

She's dressed again, but only barely, denims unbuttoned and her shirt twisted so that it's only covering the important bits. One hand covers her mouth and the other her stomach.

"Oh my God. Doctor!"

"You might want to move," he mutters to Pete an instant before Rose closes the distance and falls into his arms.

Tearing his gaze away from Pete's increasingly confused expression, he buries his face in her hair as he tightens his arm around her.

"How?" she asks around another sob.

"I don't know, Precious Girl," his free hand slips down to her waist where his thumb glides along her abdomen, "but I feel like I should be asking you the same question."

She laughs wetly but offers him no explanation.

"Here, love," he says after a few more minutes, "let's get you off of the floor."

"'m not letting you go."

He stands carefully and lifts her into a bridal carry. "I think you'll find that _I'm_ not letting _you_ go. Come along, Pete Tyler, my room is two floors up."

Rose wraps her arms around his neck, so Pete is the one who pushes the call button for the lift. The doors have just opened when Martha Jones runs up calling Rose's name.

"Wait, we didn't actually do the pre-natal."

"They're both fine," the Doctor offers as he steps into the lift. "He's short a few vitamins courtesy of having a Human for a mother, nothing that can't be easily synthesized and ingested as a pill."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"I'm his father. He told me." For a brief moment, Rose's sobs increase and her arms tighten around his neck.

As Martha stands gaping, he nods at Pete who hurries into the lift beside him.

"I don't understand," Pete says after the lift starts moving, "and that's not a common thing for me. I've met the Doctor, how can you be him?"

"There's a lot I don't understand about it, too, but I think between me and Rose we should be able to piece together most of it. But I suppose I should start with: What do you know about parallel worlds?"

"Quite a bit actually, you're holding my resident expert in your arms."

Rose sniffles and lifts her head. "You're not _my_ Doctor, is that what you're saying?

His hand, never far away from her abdomen, shifts and his fingers curl into the slight bump. "I know we never did this."

She blushes scarlet. "No, that was... um, the next you."

"You stayed with me through a regeneration?"

"'course I did. It was still you."

"Fantastic."

When the lift *dings* and the doors slide open, the Doctor leads the way to his room and gently deposits Rose on his bed. He adjusts her shirt to cover her better, his hands lingering greedily on the place where his son rests.

"But you said you're his father," she says as though continuing her question from the lift, her voice pitched low despite the fact that her father is standing not five feet away from them in the otherwise quiet room and can surely hear every word they're saying.

"He recognizes me as his father." He turns his hand and caresses her stomach one last time before pulling away. "Who am I to argue?" he adds with a smirk.

"Usually the first in line," she quips and they share a smile.

"Not about this, Rose Tyler. Never about this." He drops a small kiss to her forehead. "You and I will talk about that later. First, let's talk about parallel universes."


	3. Chapter 3

"Now, the Earth in my universe had a very short-lived and rather volatile relationship with zeppelins."

"Mine, too."

"You're not..." He gestures vaguely.

She shakes her head no. "I was separated from my Doctor. We ended up on opposite sides of a dimensional wall, me on this side, him on the other."

"But your Mum?"

"Oh! She's here with me. It was the one bright spot about this whole thing - sorry, Dad - I mean one of the bright spots."

"Well, that's good for you, but not so great for me." He brings his hand to his cheek. "Your mother never did like me much."

"She liked the next you just fine."

"Don't tell me I regenerated into one of your pretty boys."

Rose blushes again.

"Well, that's a yes," he grouses.

"That's the second time you've said that word," Pete says, preempting whatever Rose would have said next. "What's regeneration?"

"It's a Time Lord trick. When I'm dying every cell in my body rewrites itself and I come out the other side a new man - literally. Oh, inside it's still me, the stuff that counts at least, but everything else changes. I could be tall, short, blond, brunette, have big ears or small ears, I could love pears and hate bananas or hate pears and love bananas."

"So, the Doctor I met was..."

"Me. My next regeneration, from the sound of things."

Rose nods in agreement.

"All right. So, I was prepared to use you being native to this universe to debunk the Time Lord theory that we only existed in one universe, but since you're not..."

"You _are_ my Doctor."

He beams at her, immensely proud that she's worked it out so quickly. "Obviously our timelines diverged because I never regenerated. The last thing I remember before waking up here is Satellite Five."

"Yeah, you regenerated after Satellite Five."

"Do you remember what happened there?"

"Bits and pieces. The next you finally explained it to me; it was like pulling teeth with him."

"How long ago was that for you?"

"We traveled together for about another year before we got separated - you know what time is like in the TARDIS. And I've been here since just after Christmas."

"Oh, Rose," he says, his eyes falling to her stomach.

"Can we not? That's still..."

"Yeah, of course." He adds that to the list of things to bring up with her later. "My time senses are still fuzzy, but that sounds like about the first time I sensed him."

"That comports with what I know."

They both turn to look at Pete. "Dad?"

"You'd been unconscious for a year, but without warning every machine we had you on lit up. The doctors determined that you'd risen to consciousness briefly. After that it seemed like you were just sleeping, so we removed all of the equipment. Dr. Harper didn't think it was necessary anymore."

"You knew he was here?"

"I knew we had an unconscious two-hearted John Doe. Even after he woke up, he only gave his name as Dr. John Smith. It's not like I'd had the opportunity to ask the other Doctor detailed questions about his biology." His mobile rings and he steps out into the hallway to answer it.

The Doctor moves over to the bed and sits beside Rose who leans into his shoulder without hesitation.

"He didn't know," he says softly.

She sniffles. "I didn't even know until after I ended up here."

"Do you want to talk about what he did to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Surely he told you we're not compatible."

"Oh, yeah," she laughs, "often and vehemently. But it wasn't the first time you'd been completely wrong about something."

"Rose, he wasn't wrong. We're not compatible." He covers her abdomen completely with one large hand. "This is impossible."

"Well, obviously not."

"There are... ways, procedures that are horribly invasive and occasionally painful; there's no way you could have missed it."

"It was just us. Really." Her eyes widen when he sighs. "You don't believe me."

"It's not that. I believe that's what you remember."

"You think he erased my memories?"

"I don't know what he was capable of, I didn't live it. The fear of losing you after we'd been intimate might have been too much. There are a lot of reasons I had never taken that step with a companion before, your mortality is only one of them. And, if I was meddling with your physiology anyway, I might as well adjust our compatibility."

"It wasn't like that."

"That was your mother," Pete says as he walks into the room. "Apparently you were supposed to call her after your appointment."

Rose swears under her breath. "I left my mobile in the exam room. What did you tell her?"

"That you'd run across a friend and lost track of time. I figured you didn't want her barging down here."

"God, no."

He walks up to the bed and squeezes Rose around the shoulders. "If you don't need me I'm going to go back to my office, let the two of you catch up properly."

"Thanks, Dad."

Pete looks over her head and meets the Doctor's eyes as he presses a kiss into her hair. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Yeah, 'course."

"Doctor," Pete says as he moves away from the bed, but the Doctor only nods in return.

"What are we going to do, Doctor?" Rose asks after Pete has left.

"About what?" He'd shifted away from her slightly when Pete had returned to the room, now he shifts back and looks down at the top of her head when she leans against him again.

"Well, if you're going to go around telling people you're the father of my baby we're going to need some kind of story. It's not just me and Mum on the estate any more. There's Dad and Mickey - oh, he's here, too, and, boy, is he going to be surprised to see you - Jake, Tosh, Martha - and those are just my close friends, there's also the staff at the mansion and all of Dad's business partners, not to mention the pap -- "

He leans down and lifts her chin slightly so that their lips meet.


	4. Chapter 4

It starts off chaste, the barest press of lips against lips.

They've only been reunited for about an hour, but she's accepted his claim on their son and allowed him to touch her far more intimately than he had ever dared before. And he's wanted this with her for so long.

Rose whimpers sweetly and opens her mouth to his increasingly urgent kiss.

He could always tell when they'd traveled together that she was attracted to him, routinely dumping buckets of pheromones into the air and teasing him with that damnable pink tongue, testing his resolve by parading one pretty boy after another through his ship --

She pulls away and he chases after her, wrapping his arm around her waist so that she can't go far.

Elevated Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, estrogen, progesterone, the chips she had for lunch, Rose, Rose, _Rose_ \--

Her consciousness floods his own. It's unrefined, barely stronger than that of their son, but it's enough to disrupt his single-mindedness.

He opens his eyes to see her bent backwards over his arm, cheeks flushed and lips bee-stung, a heavy blanket of female pheromones in the room, dulling some of his senses and awakening others. He's practically on top of her and had it not been for the hand she'd snaked up the side of his face, the fingers she currently has pressed against his temple, he probably would be on top of her by now. She does not fear him, though, he can sense no trace of that rancid emotion in the link she's established. In fact, there's a touch of... humor?

She smiles and the palm of her hand caresses his cheek. "I'd almost forgotten how intense that could be."

He helps her sit up, touching her as much as he dares, as little as he can stand, before moving across the room to the window.

"I didn't mean for that to get so out of hand."

"I think you made your point. Together, yeah?"

"Yeah. If you want." His cheeks color pink. "It would be better if we -- it will only get worse over time, the touching, the... need. You know what it was like the first time with other me, it will be a lot like that, but his presence will add another layer to it that I won't be able to resist, like... that." He gestures vaguely to the bed.

"Can you hurt the baby, even unconsciously? I know the next you wasn't completely in control the first time."

His eyes flash dangerously. "Did he hurt you?"

"He was you, remember? Do you honestly think you could?"

He deflates a little as the fight goes out of him. "No. I couldn't hurt either of you. The protective instinct is too great."

She nods decisively as though he's made her point for her. "So, if he was as incapable of hurting me as you say, what makes you think he would do something to me to adjust our compatibility without my permission?"

"You wouldn't have been the mother of his child yet. If whatever changed between the two of you was something sudden rather than a slow build to an inevitable conclusion, he might not have had time to prepare himself mentally for everything that entailed. And, the thought of losing you would be unbearable whether it happened after five months or fifty years. The idea of extending the time you'd be able to stay with him would have been very seductive, so seductive he may have felt that the ends justified the means -- and before you try to defend him, you know very well that I am exactly that kind of man."

Rose's eyes well with tears and he closes the distance between them with his arms spread wide.

"I'm sorry, love," he says when she collapses against his chest. "It doesn't change how he -- how I feel about you. I'll get to the bottom of it, I promise."

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"Even if he erased the memories, there will still be a trace left behind, a smudge indicating that something had been tampered with. It wouldn't be _conclusive_ , of course, but pretty damning."

"What do you need?"

"Just your permission and an hour or two to look through your memories."

She sits up again and swipes at her eyes with the pad of her thumb. "There's no time like the present, right?" Her voice hints at playfulness, but her smile is brittle as she pats the bed beside her. "Come on, then, hop up."

"We don't have to do it now."

"Please, Doctor. I have to know."

"Lie down," he says after a moment. "There's no reason for you not to be comfortable."

He waits until she's lying on her side before joining her on the bed and pillowing her head on his shoulder. He touches his fingers to her temple. "Just relax. Do you know how to block things you don't want me to see?"

"There's nothing I want to hide."

"Close your eyes, love."

As soon as she does, he delves into her mind. The polite thing to do would be to download the memories as quickly as possible and rummage through them later, but it's the first time since the Time War that he's touched another person's mind and he selfishly decides to stay.

He's greeted with an image of himself, the next him, all skinny and pinstripes and far too pretty, lounging on a small hill overlooking what appears to be New New York several times removed. The smell of apple-grass is prominent, as is the tinge of wariness that pervades the memory. It must have been soon after his regeneration if Rose is still uncertain of him.

It takes him less time than he'd estimated to filter through her memories of the next him, what she'd thought to be a year really only totaling about eight months. As promised, she holds nothing back from him and he watches her fall in love all over again, including the event that finally makes his Tenth self cross the line with her. He struggles to hold back his own tears at their heartbreaking goodbye after being separated.

But there's no hint that her memories have been tampered with.

Confused, he turns his attention to the time she'd traveled with this him. He can't bear to believe that he was the one to change her -- especially since he has no memory of it -- but he finds nothing there either.

Until he watches her tear open the TARDIS and become a goddess. He'd kissed her to remove the power, a very telling choice, and, for one brief shining moment, they'd shared the clarity of 20/20 foresight and the means to do something about the hand life was going to deal them, so together they had.

He comes out of the connection gasping, and Rose tenses in his arms.

"You all right?" she mutters sleepily.

"Yeah. Yeah." He inhales roughly. "I'm fine. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm done now, you can sleep if you want."

"Did you get what you needed?"

"I did. We'll talk about it when you wake up."

"You're coming home with me later, right?"

"Yeah," he breathes. "'Course I am."

"You willingly doing domestic, never thought I'd see the day."

He drops a kiss in her hair as she falls asleep, because that's the most he dares do. He hasn't told her about the TARDIS yet, about how the stars are not out of their reach and how they'll only have to be as 'domestic' as they want. She can't travel now, shouldn't even set foot in the timeship until after the baby is born, so it's something that can keep for another time.

It's early evening when a perfunctory knock precedes the door opening and even though the woman who enters the room has traded tracksuits for Gucci, he'd recognize her anywhere.

"Well, I can honestly say I never expected to see this you again."

He lowers the hem of Rose's shirt to cover her stomach where he's spent the last few hours tracing his fingers along her skin to compose an epic poem about her in Circular Gallifreyan, the only language capable of expressing all that she is. "Evening, Jackie."

"How did you do it? She said you could never go back to this face."

"I'm from before. There was a fork in my timeline. I was sent here and never regenerated, while another me was left there who did."

"And what are you going to do now, jump back into the TARDIS with my daughter and grandbaby and leave me worrying if this is the time it'll be another year before I see them again?"

"No, Jackie, we'll be staying here for a while yet. Exposure to the vortex would be damaging to his developing body, not to mention the havoc time travel would wreak on his Time Lord senses."

She steps closer. "Rose had the ultrasound? She said she'd let me be there if she changed her mind."

"What?"

"The baby, you said 'he'."

"Oh. No. There was no ultrasound. You know I'm telepathic?"

"You mean you got in his head?"

"Actually, he got into mine. I kept saying 'he' to Rose and she never said anything. I didn't realize she didn't know. He's fantastic, Jackie. He's talking to me right now and I've been trying to keep him calm so Rose can sleep."

"Well, that's a blessin' innit?" she asks, her accent slipping back to the one he remembers from the estate.

"What's that?"

"She 'asn't been sleepin' well lately, an' didn't know if she could take anythin' for it with the baby being 'alf yours. I told her she'd 'ave to try somethin' eventually. Three months to go an' it'll only get worse the bigger she gets."

"Well, I'm here now, so I'll be able to help her with that. Also, there's no guarantee it will only be another three months. His development is on track with Gallifreyan gestation, so it could be as much as another five months."

Jackie hoots. "You didn't tell 'er that, I'll bet."

"No, we haven't had a chance to discuss a lot of things yet."

"But you're staying, properly staying."

"I am."


	5. Chapter 5

Rose stirs and opens her eyes. "Mum?"

"I'm right here, sweetheart. Himself was just telling me he's staying."

"Mmmm, I know." She shifts, raising her arms to encircle his neck as she presses the length of her body against his.

She's blessedly compatible, as evidenced by the child now sleeping in her womb, and so willing to be that for him that she'd changed her own physiology to match his without even a second thought. The knowledge of that makes her scent all that much more intoxicating, and his body begins to react immediately, dumping his own pheromones into the air as he starts to harden in his denims.

Rose hums her appreciation, and the only -- _only_ \-- thing that stops him from allowing it to continue is the fact that Jackie Tyler is still in the room.

"It's getting worse, love," he mutters in her ear.

Her eyes widen and then she blushes. "Let's get you home, then."

Jackie insists they allow her driver to take them home, which leaves them stuck with her a little longer. The torture of _that_ is mitigated somewhat because Rose sits beside him in the car and keeps her head on his shoulder and her hand in his.

And when Jackie tries to follow them up to Rose's flat, their immediate combined 'NO' reverberates off of the building. After that, Jackie's teasing smirk couldn't be wiped off of her face with Eraux bleach. He drowns her out with his own thoughts as she goes on for several minutes, telling Rose about something that _definitely_ could have waited, and when those thoughts turn decidedly lascivious, it's not until Rose looks at him with horror and then promptly pushes a cackling Jackie back into her car that he realizes he'd been making some of those noises out loud.

Rose practically drags him into the lift and out of it again a few minutes later when they arrive on her floor. He's barely able to hold on to his sanity long enough for her to open the door to her flat and pull him inside. And then he pounces.

He growls when she immediately directs his mouth to the pulse point of her neck, and her responding cry when his teeth close lightly on her skin is almost orgasmic.

" _Rose_ ," he pants, half warning, half plea, what might be the last word he consciously speaks for a while.

"I know."

He fumbles the button on his denims, and that's the only reason Rose manages to get her trousers and knickers off before he's back upon her, lifting her into his arms and pressing his erection against her opening. She keens as he lowers her onto him, but then he loses himself in the push and pull of being inside of her.

* * *

When he regains consciousness, the Doctor is alone in a soft bed with no memory of how he got there. His time sense tells him that it's mid-morning, but the room is dark around him. It also smells overwhelmingly like sex. Shortly after that, the knowledge of how long it's been crashes down around him.

"Rose! Rose!"

"Coming!"

She bursts through the bedroom door seconds later, and he can finally breathe again upon seeing her.

"Sorry. I just went to make a pot of tea. I didn't expect you to wake up so soon." As she talks, she strips off the silk dressing gown she's wearing and moves closer to the bed, stopping mid-motion when his breath catches again.

Her skin is mottled, purple in places, dark pink in others, from what looks like a combination of his hands and mouth. The more prominent ones are on her neck and hips, but her breasts, waist, and arms were hardly spared.

She's moving again before the first epithet crosses his lips, climbing onto the bed and grabbing his flailing hands.

"No, don't you dare. It's not as bad as it looks."

"It's not -- look at you! I'm surprised you can even walk if I was half as rough with the rest of you as I was with --"

"I'm fine, nothing hurts. Examine me if you have to -- after three hours playing 'Doctor' I know you know how."

"This isn't a laughing matter, Rose."

"You were laughing all during the 'full body exam' so I don't see why --"

His lips twist and the words die in her throat.

"You don't remember any of it," she breathes and he shakes his head. "Well, that seems horribly unfair. Take what you need," she adds, resting her weight on his thighs and dragging his hand to her temple.

"I can't ask that of you."

"You're not asking, I'm offering - just like I offered for the last two days." Still he doesn't move. "Look, yes, we shagged... a lot. Like bunnies... really really --" she clears her throat, humor in her eyes, but the lazy, satisfied smile that drifts across her lips speaks volumes, "-- but we laughed, we talked, we ate together, and we cuddled, too. It was amazing. And I don't want to be the only one who remembers it."

He dives into her memories.

And is immediately dowsed in pleasure so overwhelming that a cry is wrenched from him. Rose starts beside him before settling again with a chuckle.

"Yeah. That," she mutters smugly.

Her memories pick up exactly where his end, her back pressed against the door to her flat and her legs wrapped around his waist, but it's the love and acceptance she feels that almost does him in. If he watches all of this from start to finish he'll be insensible by the time he's done.

He skims through, looking for highlights - playing 'Doctor' was especially amusing, but the tender times are nice, too. There's one incident in particular that catches his eye.

_Rose throws on a dressing gown and hurries to the door. On the other side of it are two police officers, one young and fresh-faced, the other older but apparently still easily surprised, his eyes widening when he sees her. He takes the lead._

_"Afternoon, miss."_

_She belts her dressing gown tighter around her waist._

_"Afternoon, officers. Something I can help you with?"_

_"Yes, we're investigating a noise complaint; is everything all right?"_

_Her cheeks heat. "Yes, sir, there's no problem."_

_And there he is, joining her at the door, looking just as well-sexed and only slightly more respectable than her because he'd managed to find his denims and put them on. He comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, nuzzling the spot on her neck that he knows now is dark purple._

_"We're celebrating," she explains, smoothing the dressing gown over her tiny baby bump with one hand as she snakes her other behind her and around his neck. "He's been away. I surprised him with the news."_

_"That right, sir?"_

_He hums. "Best news of my life."_

_The officers exchange a glance. "All right. Well, try to keep your 'celebrating' to a dull roar, okay? If we get called out again we'll have to cite you."_

_"Thank you, Officers."_

_He's upon her again as soon the door closes. "How are you?"_

_Rose turns in his arms, bringing her other hand up and clasping them both together behind his neck. She dances sinuously against him. "I could be better. You could be doing that thing with your tongue again."_

_She squeals as he lifts her off of the floor and carts her off in the direction of the bedroom._

_"Your wish is my command."_

He downloads the rest of the memories for later review and slowly drags himself out of her mind.

Rose relaxes with a deep exhale. "Better?"

"Yeah. Thank you."

"I should be the one thanking you." She lays down and curls into his side. "Why don't you remember? The other you remembered all of it."

He caresses her stomach. "I think it has something to do with him. There's a certain level of desire to be close, to touch and build a familial connection, and it mostly happens unconsciously. We're doing this out of order --"

"An accomplishment even for us."

"Oi, cheeky. Anyway, we're doing this out of order and I think it conflicted with the more primal mating urge and shorted out my --"

" _Very_ impressive brain."

He glowers at her but there's no heat behind it. "Yes, my very impressive brain."

"It won't be a problem in the future, though, right? I mean, the memory loss was a one-time thing?"

"I don't think it will happen again. However, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, we're doing this out of order so there's really no way to tell what's going to happen next time."

"I like the sound of that: next time."


	6. Chapter 6

Though it's already mid-morning, Rose sleeps tucked into his side, his arm around her shoulders. Apparently he'd been rather selfish about her sleep schedule over the last few days, too. But as with everything else about this crazy situation, contentment rolls off of her in waves.

He uses the opportunity to chat with their son some more, confirming that Rose has another five months of pregnancy ahead of her. He also learns that the boy's development is not as hindered by being half human as he'd originally thought, which opens up a Pandora's box of questions that has him spending hours digging for answers. Because he's so focused on that, it takes him longer than he'd like to notice that her bruises are healing faster than they should.

Rose sleeps for the better part of five hours, an eternity if what he's beginning to suspect is actually true. When she awakes, it takes only a moment for her smile to slowly bloom.

"I could get used to waking up like this."

"You will."

She blinks owlishly at the absolute certainty in his voice. "'S that so?"

"Oh, yes."

That earns him a sad smile. "You sound like him - the next you - in fact, you sound more like him than yourself sometimes."

"The regeneration had already started when I was brought here, but I only caught the very beginnings of it. A short healing coma and I'm as good as new plus a few new personality quirks, but nothing as drastic as a full regeneration." He cups her cheek. "You love him. I saw that. I know I pushed you to be with me probably faster than you were ready, if you need time --"

"I love _you_ , all of you. And I loved this daft face first."

"I love you."

The absolute void of response from her is definitely not what he expected. She simply stops breathing, her eyes fixed on his as he counts the seconds that stretch out between them. It confirms one of his theories as those seconds turn into minutes and he still has not seen the rise and fall of her chest. And then as if in slow motion, her eyes redden and fill with tears.

Before he can say anything she takes a deep shuddering breath and gets herself under control.

"Don't look at me like that, Doctor, it's your fault my stupid hormones are all over the place."

"I really wish it was. Your mum said you haven't been sleeping well?"

"As well as any pregnant woman does, I guess."

"It's more than that, though, isn't it? You're getting a kip here, a few hours there, but it's just as good for you as a full night's rest."

"Everyone said I was just getting used to it," she says, but her tone suggests that she'd suspected it was something more, and with a bit of gentle prompting she continues. "A few months ago I went a week without sleeping, with no side effects. No one suspected a thing. I wasn't even really tired when I took a kip, and when I woke up I felt like I could go another week. I've slept more since you found me than the entire time we were apart."

"It's all of the telepathy, it's fatiguing your mind."

She takes a deep breath. "We didn't just adjust our reproductive compatibility when we were mucking about with Bad Wolf, did we?"

"I think you're a proto-Gallifreyan. You've got the respiratory bypass, the decreased need for sleep, you're healing faster, and" he covers her abdomen with his hand, "he's healthy, healthier than he should be if you were still completely human. I'm sure there's other things, too: extended lifespan, and you'll probably be able to regenerate. I really wish I could bring you into the TARDIS' medbay; I'd love to run some scans on the both of you."

"The TARDIS," she gasps, "oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry about?"

"You and the TARDIS were so close. You're going to be miserable planet-bound."

"I'm not planet-bound, love; she's here, in Cardiff."

"She's here?"

"We split me in two and changed your species and you're surprised we gave ourselves a copy of the TARDIS, too?"

"But we got trapped here once before with the TARDIS and she couldn't move at all. The universe wasn't compatible, she almost died."

"Well, our copy is happily soaking up rift energy and awaiting our return."

"It looks like we thought of everything."

"That it does."

Her voice turns sad again. "I'm going to have to watch everyone die, aren't I?"

"Everything ends, Rose. But you'll have me and our children." Her lips quirk at the plural and he can't help but match her. "And once we're able to travel again we'll space out our visits so you can keep Jackie and Pete around longer."

"Oh, and the baby!"

"That's what I said."

"No, Mum's pregnant, too, five months gone."

His lip curls in disgust. "I could have gone my entire extremely long lifespan and never known that."

"It's not that bad."

"Yes, it is."

"You big baby. I'm surprised you didn't notice what with your 'superior Time Lord senses'. She thinks she's as big as a house."

"I was a little distracted by the extremely desirable woman in my arms, I'll have you know. I hardly looked at your mother."

"We'll tell her it's a compliment that you didn't notice."

"She might actually start to like me a bit then."

"I think she liked you the minute you told her you weren't going to steal me and the baby away and take us to the stars."

"Well, then she's doomed to hate me no matter what I do, because I intend to show our children the universe."

Rose grins. "There's that word again."

"Well, I'm quite fond of it. Listen: Uuuuunnnniiiivvveeerrrsssseeee."

She's laughing when she smacks his shoulder and he uses her momentum to pull her on top of him. It takes her about three seconds to realize they're both still naked, and another two to do something about it.

* * *

Jackie was not pleased that the Doctor's definition of 'staying' differed from hers, but she was slightly mollified by the promise that he and Rose would be around for a while yet.

Rose's brother Anthony Peter Tyler was born at the end of October. Tony.

'The Baby,' as they'd jokingly started referring to him, followed a month later, and the Doctor absolutely insisted he be given a proper Gallifreyan name. Since no one else in the Tyler family could pronounce said name, he quickly became known as Kit - since Rose had firmly nixed 'The Kid'. He had a shock of chocolate brown hair and eyes to match, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was 100 per cent the Doctor's son.

Once both women were back on their feet, Jackie began to nag the Doctor and Rose about formalizing their union. The Doctor managed to put her off for the better part of six months, but eventually he caved to the slightly disappointed look that had taken up residence on Rose's face and told Jackie she could plan a small family wedding.

They took a month long honeymoon in the TARDIS, which is how it came to be that twenty months after Kit was born, Rose gave birth to Jack and Sarah.

"Nothing of you in any one of them," Jackie lamented to Rose as they looked over the two side-by-side cots containing her three children.

"Dominant Gallifreyan genes," Rose replied, having received the same answer from her husband multiple times.

Identically dark-haired and blue-eyed, Jack and Sarah couldn't stand to be parted for longer than the time it took their diapers to be changed, something the Doctor attributed to the intense telepathic and physical connection they'd shared since conception.

Jackie called it "that weird twin thing."

When the twins were five and Kit was seven, the family started taking small vacations in the TARDIS, and, without telling Jackie, they stayed away several months each time, always taking care to return a very reasonable week or two after they'd left.

Which worked out fine until Rose became pregnant a third time, grounding them for another eleven months, and Jamie joined the family.

The Doctor regenerated on their first trip after Jamie turned five, nearly scaring the poor boy into regenerating, too, and Rose had her pinstriped Doctor back.

It surprised no one, least of all Jackie, when the family was grounded again a few months later. By now it had been seventeen years since Rose and the Doctor had shared the energy of the Vortex and the power of Bad Wolf, and Rose had hardly aged one day in that time.

"Dominant Gallifreyan genes," Rose said, standing with her mother over the cot of her youngest, Charlie, who'd been born with blond hair and whisky-colored eyes.

"Oh, Rose," Jackie breathed, covering her mouth with one trembling hand.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Mum."

Jackie pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. "Me either, sweetheart, me either."


End file.
